The present invention relates to equipment for the food service industry, and in particular, to an apparatus and method for wrapping silverware in napkins for use as place settings.
Within a large segment of the food service industry, food service providers serve millions of customers reusing a small inventory of silverware, also referred to herein as eating utensils, which are washed after each use. Because individually handling eating utensils to set places at tables is time-consuming, a significant number of food service providers supply eating utensils in bundles which are prepared well in advance of use by manually wrapping the necessary utensils in napkins. While this procedure permits more rapid dispensing of utensils when needed, and facilitates the rapid resetting of tables for use, such preparation remains labor intensive. For high volume restaurants and chains, the labor costs may be in the tens of thousands of dollars annually per restaurant.
Accordingly, the need exists for improvements in preparing eating utensils for place settings which achieves the benefits of rapid dispensing thereof, at lower cost.